ScepticalStan

He ducked in the wall facing a free-kick in a Cup final.

He was pushed by Mata actually - get your facts right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbfQ0sxJAMo

Pause at 1.44. You can clearly see Davis on the end of the wall and Mata is nowhere near him by the time the ball is struck.

Davis doesn't have the balls or winning mentality to overcome the instinct to duck, and waves his head vaguely at the ball once its past.

For me, this totally confirmed my suspicions about the Davis-worship on here; that he is given undue praise because he's a 'hard-working British player'. If Mane, Boufal or Ramirez ducked in the wall during a cup final they'd be slaughtered on here. As it was Davis, its just erased from the history books.

I mean compare this little incident to Guly failing to come off the post and clear a header in our game against Pompey back in 11/12 and the stick he got for every single game after that.

but about five times slower and a hundred times less effective.

 

Poor signing and although it will sound harsh, I am bloody pleased we have finally seen that and attempted to upgrade. It's far better that than just keeping him here and waiting for his contract to run out before bringing someone new in.

This. Exactly.

His work rate, drive to win

He ducked in the wall facing a free-kick in a Cup final.

It is hilarious that other Premier League managers can't see what the wise old-timers in our fanbase can see; that Davis is a fantastic player and has been integral to our success.

Wenger, Pochettino, Mourinho, Guardiola, Klopp, Conte... none of them have come in with a bid for Steven Davis! Its outrageous isn't? They must be clueless about football.

Ridiculous. It was a good ball, called for by Wood, but ultimately put into an area. It could, and probably should have been dealt with, but to say Steve Davis has never played a ball like that just proves that you'll write anything to pursue your vendetta, no matter how utterly silly it is.

 

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Please provide me with an example of Steven Davis playing a defence-splitting assist that took out 3/4 players.

It isn't a vendetta. I simply don't rate Steven Davis because he's a bang average footballer. That's all.

Oh come off it, the ability to play a simple straight pass into what the commentator describes as 'all kinds of room behind' when four poorly drilled Huddersfield players have been sucked towards the ball is just the bare minimum for that position, not an example of game-running attacking nous. A 'lovely through all' bisects a well-set defence - all Davis did was pass between four players who weren't where they were supposed to be.

Anyone see Brady's pass for Burnley's equaliser today?

He's hardly a world-class attacking midfield player but I've just seen him do something Davis has never done *once* whilst at Saints.

Why you think jwp is more creative only the lord knows.

I think Lemina in the advanced MF role would be an improvement, with JWP holding with Romeu

It depends on the system. Pochettino, one of the best managers in the Premier League, was more than happy to have Davis play the role I mentioned.

But under Poch and Koeman we had some seriously good forwards who we could more-or-less expect to shoulder the entirety of any attacking responsibility alone. Besides, if he was that good, why has no other club bid for him? He certainly wouldn't cost that much.

I'm afraid Davis, though he tries his best, has never been a particularly talented player and certainly not a creative one. I'd go with JWP, Romeu and give Lemina a more advanced position as we did at the start of the second half today (which seemed to work relatively well).

Or give Hojbjerg one more go.

For some reason I'm really confident we'll win this one. They'll be the naive, newly promoted team, overconfident and ready to swarm all over us with attacking football, and we'll nick in and do them on the break. Just you wait and see.

He's not an upgrade on Puel.

Literally no-one knows that just yet.

Lightening does not strike twice..... Right?

 

Surely old Leslie hasn't ****ed up another management appointment?

 

Early days still but signs aren't great. Swansea, WHU and tonights performances don't bode well.

Ironically I thought the performance against Swansea was fine. We dominated the game and should have had two penalties.

If you want to settle for having a sub standard goalkeeper that's up to you.

He's English.

If he were a foreigner he'd be slaughtered.

Oh and by the way - I love how people are defending Forster by saying that he made the save 'at full stretch'...

...y'know, there might be a bit of an issue if your 6'6'' goalkeeper is at full stretch to save a shot from outside the area that's a good yard and a half inside the post - his footwork and (lack of) ability to launch himself into a dive has always been a problem.

Yorkshire ripper killed less than the amount of people who had strokes in a day. Baffling how it actually became a news story.

Very good comeback!

One of the most interesting things is how the narrative has changed in the last two years since the migrant crisis in 2015.

In 2015 we were told that there was no need to be concerned about terrorist attacks from migrants and that it was racist to be concerned that they would happen.

In 2017 we're now told that OK, they are happening, but that we should just jolly well put up with it (or "press on"/"never give into hate"/"never give into fear") etc.etc.

Suspect named as a 20 year old Moroccan. Must not jump to conclusions about possible motive/religion etc tho, that would be prejudiced.

I guarantee, absolutely guarantee we'll be hearing all about Ceuta and Melilla and how that was the real issue.

Just part and parcel of living in a major city

They missed a trick not getting Lucy Pinder to model our shirt.

Not a great deal between her and the lady they went for in the end tbf.

This is some of the most cringeworthy ******** I've ever seen.

Best get used to it as it's as it has always been and always will be and a bunch of entitled millennials having a hissy fit ain't going to change it.

Oh **** right off you patronising cnt. People want to see their team do well. Everyone in the country wants to see their team do well.

The millenials (I'm 26 btw) began most of their match-going experience with mates in their teenage years with Saints right in the **** so believe me, we know that it could be worse - and we don't need a ****ing lecture from our own about how apparently in your day you loved nothing more than watching Saints play in front of three men and a dog on Bitterne Park and we're lucky to even be in the football league and somehow we're supposed to balance cheering for our team to win with literally not caring whatsoever if the good players who are going to make our team more likely to win are sold.

Old ****s who paid for their season ticket off a paper round calling the youngsters entitled

I would consider this to be the main point of discussion with Virgil.

 

However, would Madrid/Barca see taking a player from a club of our stature in comparison to clubs like Liverpool as a gamble?

They'd be ****ing stupid to, given the success of Mane, Wanyama and Alderweireld.

Cant see Liverpool selling Mane for less than what they paid for him, when he has so much potential and time to improve. Never going to happen.

And why would he go to Inter? Italian football is terrible. No way could they attract someone from the top of the Premier League.

Half witted!, not a good start.

 

Are you aware that this forum is in existence for us mere mortals to voice our own opinions whether you or someone else agree's with them or not.

 

As our dear club is not as transparent as it claimed it would be, we have to sometimes guess at its plans for the future on and off the field.

 

With regard to the future, is our well run and sustainable club up for sale or not?. Will the possible take over by Chinese ownership still be able to maintain the so called Southampton way and run the club prudently?.

 

Yes we are lucky, very lucky we are still in existence, but unless you support one of the top 6 sides your glass ia always going to be half full, your best players will always leave along with the better managers and both will always want to be part of a club that offers more than what Southampton FC does. This is bound to have a negative affect on the fans eventually, especially Saints fans to which it happens almost annually.

 

This is not just a Southampton FC problem but a modern day problem with football in general, even Arsenal fans throw their toys out of the pram regularily.

 

The game is dying in my book mainly due to the gross amounts of money in the game and unless the playing field is evened up in some way so that more clubs have a chance of being more competitive fans will start deserting the game, plus we will see more negative games where the minnow clubs will just shut shop and play 10 men in defence as this is the only way to get a possible result against a team of elite footballers.

 

Rant concluded.

I think there's a lot I agree with on both sides of this argument.

On the one hand, yes, things could absolutely be worse, and that's not only compared to the recent basket-cases like Sunderland, Villa, Pompey and so on, as you only have to cast your eyes down to the lower leagues and see the Ipswiches, Coventrys, Forests, Leeds-es and Derbys and think "****, we could absolutely still be down there now."

The club is well-run, its sustainable, its created an identity for itself and is generally admired by most football fans. We're doing OK in general and are certainly doing well for our size.

However, I do think there's a bit of a masochistic tendency at Saints to really seem to 'turn on their own' when it comes to anyone showing a shred of ambition. When you look at the team we had in 14/15 and the players we had available - we absolutely should have finished higher than the 7th place we did. That isn't delusion, its simply an assessment of just how good the players we had at our disposal were. If you look at 15/16, we finished 3 points off the Champions League spots despite a horrendous run in the Winter. Our record against the Big Six was 6 wins 2 draws and 4 defeats - that's a hell of a record and certainly shows no sign whatsoever of a permanent glass ceiling.

With football being as globalised as it has been, coupled with the money available for even a club of our size thanks to the Premier League, there's a real opportunity there for clubs like us to sign players (like Mane, Toby, VVD and so on), who might not necessarily command the huge prices that the very top players go for, but simply aren't that far off their ability at all (and in some cases most definitely are at the same level, but just haven't been proven yet).

Similarly, football is still a team sport, and even with the money available, its impossible to guarantee that City or Chelsea's next bunch of star-signings will prove to gel and be a success. From time to time it'll all go wrong. Big-money flops are becoming more and more common whilst scouting networks permeate every corner of the globe - finding Kantes and Mahrezes for 500k before the market suddenly decides they're worth 60 times that as soon as they're proven.

Long story short - all it takes is for the stars to align one season and the likes of stable, well-run clubs like Saints really can and should at least hold on to the ambition to snap up a Europa League spot in the rare-but-eventual certainty that one or two of the Big 6 have a bad season.

It isn't too much to ask that we finish top half of the table, and win more than we lose. That's an achievable target for Saints. And there's nothing wrong with wanting the club to be in a position where, with a fair wind, we can actually snap up the league positions of bigger clubs over the course of one or two somewhat freakish seasons. Its just a matter of making sure we're ready to be there.

I suppose so, I tend to forget that footballers in their 20s are after good nightlife...! But quite a few of those 20-something footballers also have young families.

Hmm... not sure about that.

A standard football contract severely restricts your ability to hit the town and make the most of the nightlife (and from other things like skiiing, bungee-jumping, riding a motorbike and any other activity where you could put yourself at risk of injury). You're regularly tested for things like alcohol or substance abuse and often given a strict diet to go with your training programme - Redknapp had a straight-up blanket-ban on alcohol when he was at Spurs.

This is part of the reason why footballers get married and have kids so early on - they aren't able to make the most of hitting the town every night and banging women left, right and centre.

Anyway. London is obviously an attractive place to be, but I don't think location is too big a deal for most footballers and certainly not in England. I'd say that Newcastle and Sunderland are probably the only clubs that have felt any sort of slight impact in terms of geography.

Yet he's played for Spain.

 

Stop parroting the pundits and think for yourself, set up correctly he'd do a decent job

 

 

 

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Yeah the Liverpool fans are awful when it comes to scapegoating players. They did the same with Sakho and surprise-surprise, he turned out to be absolutely class for Palace when he got the chance to play.

 

Are they still in the top 10% in the FIFA rankings?

The FIFA rankings mean **** all. The USA were ranked about 5th throughout the 90s and 00s due to their countless noddy friendlies played against Carribean principalities.